RETHINKING THE WILDERNESS

I am not the stress or the sadness of events in my life. These moments, these pieces are just a tiny part of the rest of my world, the rest of me. I am not this disease in my life. It may have a slice of me, but it is not me. And also, I am not my loved ones or their problems. Their lives are theirs to live, as mine is my own.

When I forget that; God finds a way to remind me. I don’t know how, and it never used to be so before but; I get so intense about the negative things and about the pain within this disease that I lose myself in it all and seem to literally find myself becoming that moment, that hour of pain and unwellness. It overtakes me and entangles me in the depths until it feels like I am not just lost in the labyrinth, but the tangle of it is me. But, it is God’s desire to help me see the bigger picture.

I am more than the hard things I feel. In the moment in which pieces of sadness, anger, depression or illness seem to be saturating me, really almost becoming me, I have a choice to remember that this too shall pass; and for better or worse nothing remains the same.
There is a bigger space, a lovelier place within my world that I am just not seeing at that exact moment. But it seems to me the key is to rethink and not react, and then I will be present again in all of the rest of my world. I have found myself in this wilderness for so long now, that I somehow feel I am actually the wilderness itself, the barren unproductive wasteland. But God wants me to know that I am not.
If the MRI is right, if things are changing in my brain, if the findings are what have caused me to lose my creativity and wander in the negativity and pain, then I have to reprogram these things, these bright lights, these lesions on my brain, whatever their cause, by making new pathways or something.
If injured people can go into rehab programs for strokes and accidents and get pieces back, then I believe that through gratitude, through remembering blessings, and reminding myself that I am so much more than the negativity of any moment, I can, with practice, learn to rethink instead of react to each situation. I can retrain my brain and my spirit. Doesn’t God’s word say that as a person thinks, so he (she) is?
I think I am beginning to see the antidote. God wants me to consistently keep before me the fixed viewpoint of gratitude; it is like a North Star, and the simplicity of counting my blessings. It is all medicine, a well spring of grace, and I believe it is the cure.
There is a better way to see the big picture, to remember that I am not actually the stress, sadness or illness in my own life. These are but pieces of things that come to each one of us, and they are not my existence. My life is God in me and I in God. My life is the air in my lungs at this very instant. My life is made up of all of the graces, known and unknown, of every second.
How much more amazing would it be to feel instead, that mostly, and most of the time, I am the moment of laughter and joy, I am the moment of blessing and peace; than to believe the lie that I am the wasteland, that all of my creativity and energy is used up. The cupboard cannot be empty, it just can’t be, that must be an illusion.
The hard things come, but I am not the hard things and so I refuse to let them make me hard. Tonya Willman ©2012

                            beautiful, peaceful.....rethought.

MY SUPER POWERS!

Okay, through intense introspection I have finally realized my True Super-Powers. I almost didn’t record this for history out of sheer modesty alone. But, I MUST be true to myself. Otherwise, how will I ever win my TIGHTS OF JUSTICE?

1.   I am a highly skilled procrastinator; to the point of, say, receiving and extremely anticipated book, and then mentally not being able to read it for weeks and weeks.

2.   I am a card-carrying flake. Everything I do is flaky. Others now simply marvel and exclaim; “THERE SHE GOES AGAIN!”

3.   I absolutely never finish what I start unless it is dessert. Big endeavors or tiny projects can be randomly abandoned... I am actually learning to stop apologizing for my behavior, because really, what is the point?

4.   I am an over-thinker to the point of lunacy; including driving all those around me, who have to listen to my bouts of angst, INSANE as well.

5.   I have the attention span of a distracted toddler. Once-upon-a-time I could stay consistently and boldly on-task. It all eludes me now...

6.   Though I am acutely aware that it is a ridiculous notion, my brain firmly believes that any harsh judgments I have will instantly bring bad things upon my life in direct proportion to the amount of said ‘harshness’.

7.   Ironically, after naming super-powers #4 and #6, I now know  that I have highly developed ‘bright-lights’ on my brain. (REALLY)--Though doctors believe these are detrimental—my keen senses tell me that they are what give me my NEWLY DEVELOPED ABILITY to impulsively and randomly not give a tiny-rat’s-heiny. Now, to just focus this power for good, on things that REALLY MATTER, and not things like whether or not the Jehovah’s Witnesses are coming.

8.    My super-‘vagueness’-skills allow me to constantly do things I will regret, because I always forget ‘in the moment’ how miserable they will make me later. For example; I NEVER remember that I can no longer properly digest lettuce, therefore I ALWAYS order the salad.

9.   I can convert a 4 ounce candy bar into 2 pounds of fat, faster than a speeding bullet.

10.          Clutter is my nemesis yet I live in fear of throwing away something that could be important, even after I boldly trash it.

11.         Even though I am working on development of super-power #7 for ‘good’, I have the amazing capability to completely and utterly SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF at a moment’s notice.

12.         With my trusty mental-shield, I have no recollection of becoming middle-aged, yet the date and the mirror confirm this on a daily basis. Where did it go, and how did I waste it???

13.         I am beginning to embrace my inner-curmudgeon, which celebrates the ideals of NOT giving the neighborhood kids their ball back and having an overwhelming desire to pop children’s birthday balloons with my cake fork.

14.         I have attained a level of forgetfulness that causes total over-organization in order to function in my SUPER-FOG, for example; I can single-handedly check and recheck over fifty times that the flat-iron has, in fact, been  unplugged. And I am only able to lock my car doors IF I am physically clutching my car keys. I have actually taken to using the mighty ‘CLIP OF JUSTICE’ to attach them to my purse in order to step away from the ‘BEE-MOBILE’.

15.         Finally; I can leap to conclusions in a single bound, causing enormous amounts of remorse and mortification later.
This is MY super-power list!  Tonya Willman © 2012…you go
get your own!